VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: I must admit to being rather confused! Just recently, Venezuela hosted a summit of 117 non-aligned countries (surely an oxymoron inasmuch as a unification of non-aligned alludes at least to some common alignment?) to discuss "democracy" and "free media" in the comfortable seclusion of Isla de Margarita. Well and good!
The agenda was basically to "adopt, among other issues, concrete programs to face the communications dominion of northern countries (i.e. USA) and large companies..."
The purpose was to initiate a process "to develop freedom of the press that in the past was identified with the right of media owners to decide editorial guidelines" within the "conventional wisdom" that "any attempt to control is a violation of the right to inform."
In a final analysis the 117 countries aligned in the non-aligned pact said it should resolve to ensure "enhanced media freedom" to serve as a common ground in "the quest for a new world information and communication order." WOW!
President Hugo Chavez was the keynote speaker and Minister of Communications & Information (MinCI) Andres Izarra hosted the event on Isla de Margarita but in the aftermath of the deliberations one surely has to ask what was significantly achieved?
Okay! Izarra has presented himself as a New World leader in the communications revolution but, apart from setting up TeleSUR to mimic CNN en Espanol throughout South America (and hey, why not the world?), he's aiming to mimic AP, Reuters and UPI (even AFP, Xinhua and DPA) with a non-aligned alignment of state-controlled news agencies to pump the news that the AP, Reuters, UPI et.al. "brotherhood" patently fail to do in their anglophonic First World bias on world events!
The ambition is good, and all power to Andres Izarra on the next step in his career to mimic Murdoch albeit decidedly on the left of the political rainbow!
However, replacing Murdoch's world domination with an Izarra counterfeit is probably NOT the most well-though-out brainwave although, as one senior diplomat recently put it to me, the object of the exercise ... be it Murdoch or Izarra ... is CONTROL! And therein lies the danger of both to the concept of "democracy" (especially that version espoused by Izarra's immediate boss, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias) and "freedom of the press."
Part of Izarra's problem, of course, lies in a personal fixation on arch-enemies Cisneros and Granier -- the latter was his boss, pre-2002 coup d'etat, the former seen as a supra-national threat, inasmuch as he is the Spanish-language version of Murdoch, in control of umpteen TV and radio networks in Nort, Central and South America as well as a vast publishing empire.
But you can't find anything wrong in Andres' burning career and life's ambitions to reach even beyond the ionosphere as the media mogul of the 21st Century. He certainly knows his onions and he has the backing of the Venezuelan leftist establishment as well as his famous political ideolog father, William. President Chavez puts tremendous trust in both father and son ..., although Izarra's most intimate clique, or brotherhood, in certain instances seems lacking in the revolutionary zeal with which one would suppose him to have been genetically imbued.
Were it not for the dubious aspirations of a considerable number of Izarra's entourage, one could surely wish him well, secure in the knowledge that he, personally, is true to the concept of Chavez' pursuit of a democratic reality for Venezuela's millions and Latin America's millions more. But, in an alarming similarity with President Hugo Chavez' own problems, Izarra is faced with a helter-skelter of governmental improvizations and feints that would test any reincarnation of Sigmund Freud, with false-flagged Chavistas sabotaging the system from within. Perhaps he places too much reliance on bad apples at least knowing where they're placed, but he's still lacking the direction he needs to really stand a chance against the overwhelming advantages of a Cisneros/Granier alliance with the US government's lavishly funded psych-ops efforts to discredit and win the war against everything in their lunatic minds that Chavez stands for.
If it is simply CONTROL that Andres is out after, he will almost certainly win it with the unique financial backing, solid collegiate and inspirational support of President Chavez ... but will be be able to hold on to it long-term, without without the alignment of non-aligned forces throughout the world?
It all seems rather vague taking into consideration that the Murdoch and Cisneros/Granier power bases have taken decades while one has to question whether or not President Hugo Chavez is going to continue uniquely at the helm of Venezuela's destinies until he reaches equivalent venerability with former President Rafael Caldera. Certainly, with the embedded "sifrinos" and false-flaggers currently invading his extended ministerial network there is little prospect of very much extended success and, if there is, one has to question how far Venezuela's sense of democracy will be degraded by the time any such achievement is eventually won.
Yes, Andres is most definitely the man for the job as Venezuela's Minister of Communications & Information BUT if he would only spend a less time running around like a headliess chicken each time the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl spouts off some ignorant prose, and spent a little more time introspectively analyzing his cohorts in MinCI and at a number of embassies and consulates, he might more easily construct an independent powerbase on which to construct the ambitions with which he has, so far, met with considerable success.
If I may venture a personal opinion, Andres often falls foul of the selfish career manipulations of some of his underlings who have anything but his, or his portfolio's best at heart. Too easily. he takes on their negativities while ignoring positives that are glaring him obviously in the face.
It's sad but true ... and in these hours of Venezuela's ultimate destiny, and with the weight of determined opposition set so resolutely against President Chavez, no opportunity should be lost to deal with the querks that work against him. He needs to know who his friends are, and to beware the enemies lurking ready to knife his or his President's back.
Nothing has changed since the days of Caesar and Brutus! Et tu!
Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com
Venezuela is facing the most difficult period of its history with honest reporters crippled by sectarianism on top of rampant corruption within the administration and beyond, aided and abetted by criminal forces in the US and Spanish governments which cannot accept the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to decide over their own future.
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